Apoptosis
by Tiara of Sapphires
Summary: Something goes wrong during a mission and Sara is left with a choice. Jaal/Sara MEA spoilers
1. you're so far gone, but i'm not leaving

**Everyone wants human/angara babies after my most recent fic and instead I wrote this…I hope you like pain and suffering as much as I do!**

 **Enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Mass Effect. I just like to suffer.**

…

Sara's mouth tasted like copper. Someone—Cora?—was dragging her backwards out of the room, arms hooked around her armpits.

People were yelling. Angry, afraid, primal. She understood why, but couldn't comprehend.

"He didn't mean it—he didn't mean it," Sara muttered.

She could barely hear herself over the yelling and the ringing in her ears but she repeated it over and over, as if it would make it true.

It wasn't his fault. It was hers. It had been a mistake going into the holding cell. It had been a mistake to go into that wing of the Nexus in the first place.

Everyone—literally everyone, even her own brother—told her to stay away. Eyes always soft, pitying.

It had been a day and the _Tempest_ 's crew was in various states of recovery after the battle and Sara needed to make sure it wasn't a dream. That it wasn't some terrible nightmare or SAM's idea of a cruel joke, forcing her to watch a simulation of what could happen. So she could be prepared.

But, gods help her, she could've sworn she saw Jaal in the kett's eyes for a moment as the creature hunched in the corner of his cell. That flash of particular softness that he always reserved for her. The light she saw was like the one she'd see when he would stare at her when he thought she wasn't noticing. It was a sad light, mournful. As if conscious of what he had become.

She had approached, closer, her mistake, heedless to the people at her heels telling her to stay away.

He was right there. She could see the light in his eyes. He was still there inside that shell.

Then a bony hand caught the side of her head, snuffing out that hope in an instant.

Jaal would never hurt her. This wasn't him. It wasn't right.

Cora finally released her in a deserted hallway. They both could hear the faint sound of a scuffle, of an unnatural and garbled voice.

The door to the cell would be shut again, likely not to be opened. They would throw food at him, likely. They didn't know if kett could survive without food and Sara didn't want to find out by accidentally starving him.

Cora was watching her.

Sara didn't want to look at Cora. The older woman already thought her impulsive and immature even after the Archon. This incident was only another bullet point on the growing list of Sara Ryder-related screw-ups.

"Ryder—Sara. Go back to your quarters. Clear your head. There's nothing you can do," Cora insisted, all but shoving her in the direction of her quarters.

Sara's throat worked around a lump. She wasn't going to cry. She cried enough on the ride from the mission back to the Nexus.

Nothing she could do. That was the nth time she heard that and, even then, it didn't make it any easier. She wasn't going to cry in front of Cora, not again at least.

"Don't let them hurt him," Sara said, unsuccessful in keeping the waver out of her voice.

She wasn't sure what she'd do if she came back and one of the Initiative had executed Jaal—what was left of him at least—without her knowledge. Tann knew there would be hell to pay if anything happened to Jaal on his watch, but would that be enough?

The memories of slaughter and battle were still fresh in everyone's minds. There was no love for the kett on board, no matter who the kett used to be.

Cora smiled, but it looked forced.

"Got it."

Sara turned on her heel and marched to her quarters. One foot in front of the other. Ignore the ringing and the swelling and the limp and the way each breath felt like cinders were floating in her lungs. She should've stayed in the medical bay for at least another hour before she left for the containment cells. The medi-gel was doing its work on the burns and lacerations, bandages sticky to her skin. She should probably go back to get her head checked out.

No. Stay the course.

The people she passed eyed her strangely. She wasn't sure if she saw pity or fear or a combination of the two.

The lump forming on the side of her face and the bandages slapped to her neck and chest made her look like she got in a fight and lost.

She did, didn't she?

Stay the course. She bound the shattered pieces of herself with glue and tape and pride.

In a span that seemed like an instant and an eternity, she was back in her temporary quarters.

The door slid shut behind her and she leaned heavily against it.

Alone. Alone, again. Even though SAM was in her head and Scott was awake and ever-concerned about her well-being, she was alone.

She had watched a thousand paths and a thousand futures burn to one. Jaal was kett. There was no future.

Her stomach lurched and she stumbled to the bathroom, gagging into the sink.

Sara wanted to break something. She wanted to rip and tear and burn until the whole damn galaxy felt even a fraction of the pain she was feeling.

She sobbed, eyes and throat burning.

She should have killed him outright, the moment the Exaltation had taken hold of him. All of the color and light on his body had been corrupted and destroyed before her eyes, as she screamed from where she watched.

Drack had Jaal pinned to the ground before she could think to move, towards or away from him. He had also killed the kett who had Exalted Jaal. She didn't know when he did that, but black blood dribbled out of the blistered corpse. For a bitter moment, Sara had wished the kett had lived so she could've killed him slowly, bit by bit.

Shaking steps had brought Sara closer to Drack and Jaal. Her hands were tight on her rifle and her knuckles cracked. Jaal struggled under Drack. He cursed and yelled, the beautiful lilt of his voice gone.

Sara knew she should have killed him. A quick shot to the head and what was left of his soul would be at peace. Or perhaps he would be reincarnated. She knew that if he was reincarnated, he would be turned into something beautiful, just as he was as Jaal Ama Darav. And then, maybe, they could find each other again.

But she gave the order, locking Jaal in the tiny holding cell on the _Tempest_ and not listening to anyone who told her that it was futile. And she wept.

She wasn't sure if keeping him alive, dragging him to the Nexus, was an act of mercy or weakness.

What could the Initiative do for him, except keep him in a cage? He couldn't hurt anyone, or himself. For all she knew, he could be trapped in his own head, slowly suffering and burning as his cells died and morphed and were corrupted.

"SAM, did I do the right thing bringing him here?" Sara asked aloud.

What kind of answer she was expecting out of the AI, she didn't know.

"I do not know. My understanding of human emotion tells me that this was the correct course of action. Killing him would have caused an immense amount of emotional damage."

Sara nodded at nothing.

Emotional damage. Yeah. She felt broken up enough while Jaal was still alive, technically. Guilt, grief, anger. All in one roiling mess.

How would she have felt if she had to kill him herself? This kett didn't look like Jaal. The beauty of him had been destroyed. It would have, should have been easy, killing a dead man.

Her mouth shook.

It wasn't fair. He sacrificed so much to get them to where they were, only to be turned into a kett soldier. Because she got to close, put him in the firing line.

The kett already knew that she was unfazed by the idea of her own death. She faced death three times, one time entirely voluntarily, and still marched on.

So, what did they do, but take someone she loved and irrevocably stole him from her. That was her punishment for what she did to them. For killing the Archon. For taking Meridian from them.

It wasn't fair. This war took and stole from her. Her father, almost her brother, now her love. Hero, savior, with nothing to show for it.

Gods, how was she going to tell Jaal's family? How was she going to explain this to Sahuna?

Sahuna treated her like a daughter despite the difference of species, and Sara couldn't help but regard her as someone like a mother.

"What do I tell her?" Sara asked.

"The truth would be the wisest course of action. I think it would be cruel to withhold this information from her."

Objective. Pragmatic. Two things that she really didn't want to be at that moment.

"I don't think I can do it."

"Would you rather Director Tann tell her? Or perhaps Director Addison? Or one of their secretaries?"

Sara almost punched a hole in the wall at the thought.

She could almost hear the stiff-voiced message, a flat and empty message of condolences. An offer for monetary restitution—a small one at that—and a delivery of Jaal's personal effects.

No.

"I am activating the vid-com," SAM said, "Will you contact Sahuna on Havarl?"

She swallowed, regretting bringing up Sahuna in the first place with SAM. But she knew that if she didn't do it now, she would avoid it until Sahuna was the one contacting her.

"Okay. Call her," she muttered.

She wiped her face and walked back to the vid-com in the center of the room.

Dread and panic grew like tumors in her stomach, choking the life out of her.

She wasn't ready. But she never would be ready. SAM knew that. He was buried so deep in her mind that her thoughts might as well be his.

Time passed, sluggish. For a moment, Sara thought she wasn't available and wasn't sure to look forward to or dread that fact.

Her heart dropped the moment she saw Sahuna's image. The fresh wave of grief almost bowled her over. She hadn't realized the similarities between them, the angles of their faces, their smiles. Not until Jaal—until…

"Sara! How nice to hear from you? How are things? Is my boy treating you well?"

Sara never hated and loved that voice more in her entire life. The lilt and the genuine happiness clearly passed from mother to son.

She wanted to die. Anything to keep her from saying what she had to say.

"I'm sorry."

The words escaped Sara's mouth in a fractured squeak. What more could she say but to apologize?

"I'm so sorry," she repeated, shaking her head, eyes trained to the ground. "Jaal—he—I couldn't."

The kett had pinned him, overwhelmed him. Sara had been too far away, but she had the perfect view, just enough so that she was in Jaal's field of vision.

They probably meant it that way. They wanted her to watch the starry light in his eyes and the kindness of his face be destroyed.

"My son—is he dead?"

Sahuna's voice wavered and splintered.

Sara covered her face and started to cry. Big, heaving sobs. Her hand went up to her chest, where a large bandage covered medi-gel and burn wounds. She pressed, pain threading through pain.

"No! They turned him! They fucking Exalted him. Now he's one of them!"

She couldn't hear Sahuna's grief over her own. Sahuna wasn't there during the fight. She didn't see Jaal fighting and struggling to break free. He hadn't been in a trance. He had fought every moment before the injection took hold of him.

He had called out Sara's name. It was the last thing he said. Only love in his eyes, love for her, as his skin cracked and blistered.

"It was my fault. I should've protected him," Sara cried.

Everyone told her that there was nothing she could have done. There were too many kett, too few Initiative. The kett had a plan, executed to near-perfection.

It all felt like a lie, a bunch of excuses. Sara was Pathfinder. She should've been better and guarded her own. She never should've let the kett separate them. That was when everything went wrong.

The one time she failed to be able to coordinate and organize, Jaal was lost.

"Where is he?" Sahuna asked.

Her voice sounded thick with tears.

Sara wiped her eyes, forcing herself to look at Sahuna's image. The angara looked like she aged twenty years in 2 minutes.

How unfair it was to Sahuna. She lost her husband to the kett, now her son. Even with an extended family, it would be lonely.

Sara couldn't fill that void. She wasn't angara.

"He's on the Nexus. In—in a containment cell. They wanted to kill him but I couldn't do it. I threatened to quit and take SAM with me if they did anything to him."

She tore into Tann the instant he suggested 'putting down' Jaal. In fact, she was probably an inch away from strangling him if she didn't feel so tired and deflated.

If it was fear of bodily harm or fear of losing their human Pathfinder that stayed his hand, Sara didn't know. She didn't care.

As long as Jaal wasn't harmed. Even though it wasn't Jaal. The pieces of him that she touched and loved were gone.

She wasn't even sure if she would have followed through with the threat of leaving. Without her rank as Pathfinder, what was she, now that Jaal was gone?

"I want to see him," Sahuna said.

Sara immediately cringed. She didn't want Sahuna anywhere near the Nexus or the cell. Sara knew what was there. It would do them no good.

"He isn't there anymore, Sahuna. It will—you won't see your son."

There was no closure to be had, surely. Who they knew as Jaal wasn't accessible anymore. The co-opted and reanimated corpse was only to be destroyed.

The two of them cried together for a long time, few words exchanged. There was nothing more they could do at that moment. They could only cry.

The tears abated after a while, enough for them to catch their breaths.

"Sara, my daughter," Sahuna began.

Sara hiccupped. The question that seemed to repeat itself as they cried together was brought to the foreground: why was Sahuna being so kind to her? Sara got Jaal killed, at the end of the day that was the truth. To not be yelled at, to be treated to a soft word, to be still treated like family even though the link between them had been severed.

It was more kindness than she deserved.

"I will come to the Nexus."

"Sahuna—," Sara started, only to pause when Sahuna raised a hand.

"I will come to the Nexus. Not to see Jaal, but to see you. Angara—we comfort each other during times of loss."

Sara opened her mouth to argue and then let it close with a click.

"Okay."

She felt small, smaller than she ever felt before. She stood against monsters and among the traces of gods with a stiff spine and all it took a grieving mother to bring a Pathfinder to her knees.

Sahuna nodded. There was a ghost of a smile on her mouth. Sara wondered how long it would take for Sahuna to truly smile again.

"Stay strong and clear, my daughter. I will contact you soon."

Sahuna's image blinked out of existence and Sara wanted to call her back.

She wanted Jaal back, alive and whole. She could return to the holding cell and watch the kett pacing the cell and try to find Jaal somewhere. She could sit there and watch and watch. She could let herself waste away watching him.

"How do I find a cure?" she whispered.

Sara kept asking that question to anyone who would listen. And those were few.

How? How could she cure Jaal from this affliction?

Lexi had pushed that cold, hard idea—Sara couldn't call it a truth—that Exaltation was permanent. She had told Jaal this, that his people couldn't be restored after being Exalted. Sara knew that if she went to Lexi, she would receive the same answer.

But Sara couldn't bring herself to accept it.

There had to be some way to bring Jaal back. Death didn't stop her the three times it tried to touch her. Why was this any different?

What was all that different from Exaltation and death?

"How do I find a cure, SAM?" she yelled.

An answer. She needed an answer. SAM killed her and brought her back from the dead. Threw her into an unknown abyss attached to thread and yanked her back in the name of the Initiative, of survival.

She remembered death feeling like falling, but that was all she could remember. Maybe people aren't meant to, aren't able to remember what happens after one dies. SAM experienced death too, that day. SAM was becoming more human-like by the day. If he felt what she was feeling now, the gnawing ache of sorrow, maybe he would regret sinking so close to his human symbiont.

"I don't know," SAM answered.

His voice offered no emotion, as usual. That was one thing that the AI lacked.

For an instant, Sara was angry. That wasn't a good enough answer.

But, 'I don't know' wasn't 'there is no cure'.

There was some hope to be found in that. A flickering, weak hope at that, but still hope.

Sara wasn't sure if SAM truly understood what love was or if he could experience it. He had been in her head through it all. When she met Jaal, when she first kissed him, when they first made love under the waterfall. SAM was there during the confessions, the kisses, the sex, everything. It could just amount in his databank as a series of memories, unattached to trivial human emotions. Or maybe he learned something that no computer could teach it.

Regardless, Sara had a feeling that he would help her get Jaal back. Help her find and exhaust every possibility.

"Do you know where to start?"

"I have a few ideas, Pathfinder."

…

 **Ahahaaaa bet y'all weren't expect that, huh?**

 **All feedback is appreciated! Definitely motivates me to update more quickly ;)**

 **And, if you want to yell at me for the emotional distress I may have caused, I do have a tumblr at tiaraofsapphires!**

 **Cheers!**

 **~Tiara of Sapphires**


	2. i succumb to the weight of the world

**Yaaaay I'm back. Sorry it took me forever to update, but I had ideas elsewhere and I also got 3/4ths of the way through this chapter, realized I didn't like it, and rewrote it.**

 **Chapter title from Back to the Earth by Starset**

 **Enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Mass Effect. I just like to suffer.**

…

Sara had given the _Tempest_ crew one more day before they were expected back on the ship, ready to disembark.

It brought up the total amount of time they were on the Nexus to three days.

By then, the medi-gel and time would mend battle wounds to the point where they could get back into the field. The physical was recoverable.

The emotional, however, was a different story.

The entire team took this loss hard, that much was obvious on the ride back to the Nexus, though not as hard as she did. Jaal, their teammate, their confidante, their friend.

She would let them mourn for a man who wasn't dead yet.

She would busy herself in finding a way to get him back.

That brought her to a desk now covered in reports and every scrap of information pertinent to the kett she could find.

They knew some things about the kett. Things about their behavior based on intelligence gathered from military encounters. Things about their physiology, from autopsied bodies. But, not enough, never enough.

SAM had his information on Meridian and the Jardaan. It wasn't enough or conclusive, but it was a start.

There had to be some answer there. If the Jardaan created the angara, maybe they had insight into their physiology, enough to reset Jaal to before Exaltation.

The Jardaan were intelligent and powerful enough to create a whole other sentient species. There had to be some root of a cure there.

"I would not place too much hope in the information I collected when we defeated the Archon," SAM said.

"We need more, don't we? We need to look harder."

She raked her fingers through her hair.

"Fuck," she breathed, "I don't know where to begin."

"Perhaps one of the vaults will have answers after Meridian's activation."

She hummed in agreement. It made sense.

They had vaults on Eos, Havarl, Voeld, Kadara and Aya. It would take time to visit them all, explore every last inch of them to find some kind of hint.

The issue was that Sara didn't know how much time she had to look.

"It may also be wise to revisit the ruins of the kett base on Voeld," SAM continued.

Schematics and maps appeared on her datapad.

"Yeah. We should go there first. Look at the base and the vault. Two birds, one stone. Then we move on."

It was logical, of course. SAM didn't do anything that wasn't logical so when he didn't speak up to contradict her, she assumed he agreed with her.

She tried to be as logical as possible, trying to separate the level-headed Pathfinder from the mourning shell-shocked girlfriend, focus on the former than the latter. She supposed she needed a bit of both to get the job done.

She was going to fight. She had to.

Even if she had to tear apart the fucking laws of nature to bring him back, she would.

Sara let herself have that conviction, though it hurt.

She refused to cry anymore, especially in front of Scott, and her jaw hurt from clenching it so hard all the time.

She tapped on her desk. She didn't like the quarters she was given on the Nexus. They were too barren and impersonal. Even her father's quarters on the now-beached Hyperion had a bit more life to it.

But it had all the essentials that Sara needed, so it didn't really matter.

She turned back to the datapad to make a rough outline of what the hell she was planning on doing.

Sure, Voeld first. Then Meridian, then Kadara, then Elaaden, then Eos, then Havarl. She dreaded a visit to Havarl. She would have no choice but to visit Jaal's family and face her failure. But perhaps she would get lucky before going to Havarl and she would only return to his family with Jaal whole again.

It wasn't likely Too many variables, too many unknowns.

She couldn't just ask for a cure to be made. No one would listen to her. They wouldn't waste valuable time and resources for something that was, in their minds, futile.

Lexi would tell her that it wasn't possible, just like the asari had told Jaal all those days ago. That was back when it was simpler, when Exaltation happened to other people, to distant relations and unknown people.

This hit so close to home that the kett who turned Jaal might as well have shot Sara in the chest. It would've probably hurt less.

A life for a life. If it came to that, she would pay that price.

She kept that fact close, though, never verbalizing it. She was determined, not suicidal.

There was a knock just as SAM said, "Scott is at the door."

Scott let himself in, tray of food in his hands, before she could do anything about the piece of information. She supposed SAM was just giving her a warning and was going to let him in whether she liked it or not.

She grunted in greeting.

She didn't talk much to anyone outside of SAM, hardly let anyone into her room. Scott was the only one who really attempted to see her as far as she knew. The rest of the Tempest crew must have known to give her some distance.

She didn't allow herself to waste away, but it felt like she was dying a little every second. She knew she needed to be strong. It would be a long time, a lot of work, to get Jaal back.

But, she let herself wallow in how fucking shitty this situation was for a bit.

Eat little, sleep even less.

Scott and SAM made sure that at least she was getting enough food and sleep to survive. Her brother offered her glasses of water and plates of food that tasted more like sawdust than anything, telling her that he wasn't going to leave unless she finished at least half of it.

It wasn't an idle threat, either. He always had that set in his brow that told her that he was very serious.

For his benefit, she choked down her food, this time nutrient paste and bread that tasted synthetic more than anything else. Scott watched her as he sat next to her. Probably checking to see if he needed to tattle to Harry or Lexi.

The bruises were yellowed and fading. She was at least aware enough to change the medi-gel and bandages on her wounds so they were mere echoes of what they were days earlier.

Scott pitied her, she knew that.

"Do you want me to stay?" Scott asked after her plate was empty.

She shook her head.

"No, I—

"Still need space?" he finished.

A nod. Of course, Scott knew her.

"Well, if you need a fresh pair of eyes, you know where I am."

He stood up and kissed the top of her head.

"Love you, Sara."

"Love you too."

The door shut with a hiss and she was alone again.

She didn't throw her datapad onto her desk, but it made a loud noise regardless.

She avoided her email as much as possible, but every so often she'd glance at the little number and noticed how it got bigger and bigger.

When she finally checked, it was exactly what she expected: a flood of emails expressing condolences from across Heleus. It seemed like everyone she ever met in Heleus, who she remembered and didn't remember, had sent an email, paying respects.

Respect and condolences for a man who wasn't dead yet.

But she read them anyway, gave them short and stilted acknowledgements. It was overwhelming.

Even Reyes Vidal sent something, to her surprise. Even more surprising, how heartfelt and sincere it was.

But when she thought about it, it was likely sent at the prodding of her brother.

It was good Scott was doing something after the Archon wreaked havoc on him. He was assigned as liaison between the Initiative and Reyes' Collective.

She wasn't an idiot, she could tell from vid-calls and emails that something was up between Scott and Reyes. She thought about calling Scott back and having him give her details.

Even if it was nothing, it would be a welcome distraction.

She shook herself out of it.

No, she didn't need a distraction. She needed to keep working. She needed to find all the missing pieces to an impossible puzzle and get Jaal back.

Minutes blended into hours and it got to a point where she wasn't sure if it was her hands that were shaking or the words on her datapad were moving by themselves.

"You have had approximately 2 hours of sleep in the past 62 hours. You need to sleep," SAM spoke up.

Sara startled at the sound, cursing when the datapad crashed to the ground.

It took her a moment to pick it up, everything sluggish. She felt drunk.

"Need sleep, huh?" she mumbled.

The bright code of SAM node writhed and swirled.

"Symptoms of sleep deprivation include impaired judgment, slowed reaction times, hallucinations, paranoia, and eventually death. To avoid this, I suggest sleep."

Sara grumbled as she stood and shucked off her clothes.

There was a reason she didn't sleep, and when she did, slept fitfully. She dreaded what kind of dreams would meet her as soon as she closed her eyes.

There could be dreams of the battle, of Jaal's face twisting in pain. Perhaps that was why the angara were in a trance before they were turned in that facility on Voeld. She wished Jaal hadn't felt anything and didn't feel anything anymore. Maybe he was locked away in a numb state, some tiny spark of the angara she once knew, hidden in the recesses of that kett body. She didn't know, couldn't know.

She hated not knowing.

And then there was the possibility of there being dreams of before the battle. Of caresses and kind words, a rendezvous behind a waterfall.

Only to wake up, knowing that those things were only memories.

She lay down and pulled the blanket over her. The lights dimmed on their own accord, though it was likely SAM's doing.

"I don't know how I can sleep," she muttered, half to herself, half to SAM.

"I can help."

SAM turned from a buzz to a hum in the back of her head and the world turned black.

…

She woke up with her face wet and her chest aching.

She didn't know if she had a nightmare or what. She just felt empty, like she just had a breakdown and didn't get an opportunity to actually feel the outpouring of emotions and was just left with the hollow echo.

Sara wanted to lash out at SAM, screech and scream at the AI in her head. He basically knocked her out without her express permission, but she figured he did it for her benefit. She couldn't bring herself to be angry with him. That required energy that she didn't have.

"Sara, you are expected on the Tempest in an hour."

She groaned and forced herself into a sitting position, groaning again when pain creaked its way through at the movement.

Aches and pains. She was only twenty-three and sometimes she felt like she was sixty years older than that. She got shot at and fallen off of plenty of high places and gotten the shit beaten out of her more times than she could count and it took a toll.

"Okay, SAM."

She shuffled to the bathroom and near-boiled herself in the water. She slapped on makeup to cover the bruise-like shadows under her eyes, reapplied bandages over the wounds that were still healing, and dressed.

Looking back into the mirror, she looked like a living human, vaguely. She even looked like a Pathfinder, ready to take on another army.

Did she feel like it?

No, not really.

She was exhausted and emotionally drained, despite several hours of sleep.

One last cursory look at her emails. More condolences and minutiae that she could deal with once they were underway on the _Tempest_.

Sara didn't want to leave her room, just for the sake of not wanting to see anyone. But for the sake of bringing Jaal back, she was dragging her ass out to the world.

"Alright, SAM, let's face this."

There were only nods of respect and quiet greetings of 'Pathfinder' on the walk between her apartment and _Tempest_. Deference to a hero, though she didn't particularly feel like a hero.

She tried to look as normal as possible. It wasn't too difficult. She could hide her pain, both physical and emotional. There was no question she still mourned, it had only been a few days and it was no secret how close Sara and Jaal were.

She tried not to think of Jaal as dead or in the past. Dead meant there was no going back. He was alive, in some form, in a cage on the Nexus.

For now. She would get him back, eventually.

Liam stood at the lowered ramp of the Tempest, clearly waiting for her. Everyone else must have been on board.

Before he noticed her, Sara watched. He looked tired, a little hunched-over.

He and Jaal were good friends, close despite differences in culture and species. If anyone else could take this loss as hard as Sara did, it would be him.

He brightened a bit when he finally saw Sara, not so much that it looked fake. Sara managed a smile in return.

"There she is," Liam said, patting her back when she got close.

"Hey, Liam."

He was always a ball of energy, no matter what, at that much was clear when he waved his hands as he spoke.

"Now, I know you're expecting me to try to dissuade you from this. Be the voice of reason and all that."

Sara snorted. "You, the voice of reason?"

Liam grinned self-deprecatingly. It was nice to joke, like nothing ever happened.

"Yeah, right?" he said.

A serious expression stole over his face. "But, fuck that. It wasn't fair what happened. Everyone else is fucking pissed and are behind you."

She nodded.

"That's good to hear."

"Yeah. Plenty of waxing poetic over a lot of drinks brought about a consensus. We're doing this. We even got Lexi to shut up for two seconds and give this a chance. Plenty of freaky things have happened in Andromeda. What's another?"

Sara felt a fresh wave of tears crop up, but she blinked them back.

"Thanks. You don't know how much that means to me."

He patted her back again. "No thanks needed. Let's get him back, alright?"

A surge of confidence straightened her spine and she nudged him.

"Yeah. Let's do this."

She passed by most of the other crew members on her way to the bridge. There were soft greetings, but Sara had every reason to believe she was going to be cornered by every single one of her friends on the ride to Voeld.

Nobody protested. In fact, everyone looked invigorated, like they were just as willing to go through with this as she was.

She glanced at the closed door of the tech lab and swallowed a lump. Jaal wasn't there. When she walked through the cargo hold, she didn't look for their recently-installed cell or for dried splatters of kett blood.

Business as usual.

Suvi gave her a tentative smile as soon as she entered the bridge. She had a feeling she was going to be requested for a cup of tea and a chat about life and death.

"Are you sure about this?" Kallo asked from his seat.

The hesitation in his voice grated her nerves with a force that surprised her, making her tense, anger and defensiveness creeping vice-like around her throat.

Apparently, the consensus wasn't as universal as Liam had said.

But she couldn't truly fault Kallo for asking. It would do them no good for her to change her mind halfway to Voeld and send them on a wild goose chase on the other side of the cluster. He, as pilot, needed to think about fuel and supplies, so they don't get stranded on one planet or another for days because they ran out of fuel.

This was her plan, her path. And she had only so much time before the Initiative leaders got antsy that their human Pathfinder was traipsing around Andromeda without any progress in anything.

But Avitus, Hayjer, and Vederia were there. They could pick up the slack while she was away. She wasn't alone in the whole Pathfinding business. Hyperion was aground on Meridian, so she had completed what technically the human Pathfinder was supposed to do.

She could go _traipsing_ all she wanted until there was an incident that needed all four Pathfinders to deal with it.

She saved the fucking cluster. She was allowed some sort of leeway in her activities.

So, yeah, she was sure about this. As long as Jaal was in that state she would always be sure of any plan that could possibly return him to her.

"Positive. Set course for Voeld."

…

 ***shrug emoji***

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